4/8 task plus

Before I specifically respond to today's task I'll share some observations that I didn't have a chance to write about before. I've been working on the Spanish L2 site. I chose this site for a couple of reasons. First, my students are using LEI and it seemed that working on a site that presents the language in an organized and sequenced way would provide an experience more comparable to theirs than random exercises. Also, because of my frustration in not being able to produce Spanish, despite a fairly high level of comprehension, I was highly motivated to work on production, which is something this site allows me to do in writing. On the other hand, the listening/reading doesn't provide much of a challenge, and I am impatient with how slowly the speakers speak and the screens move. Last week I tried covering the screen and turning down the volume while listening and that did make it more of a challenge. I also tried waiting until the end of dictation to enter missing material, which also increased the difficulty. I got down to the writing part of the homework a couple of times, but didn't finish for various reasons, and came back to find that I had lost everything that I had done and had to start over. That is discouraging and helps me appreciate that with LEI each activity is corrected as it is completed. I've also experienced technological problems (while trying to use the Alt- numbers to type in the accent mark and tilde the whole page disappeared) and am more sympathetic with my students whose progress is slow because they are still learning how to navigate a computer program.
Today I first scanned the content of the lessons to choose one that would be more relevant than what I did last week. (Last week I practiced using vosotros; this week preterite of some irregular verbs and vocabulary related to computers.) Next, as I listened to the lecture, I focused on jotting down any new vocabulary or phrases that I wanted to remember while keeping my eyes averted from the screen, rather than just covering the screen. During the practice phase I realized that I could click on the next screen as soon as I felt I had enough feedback to confirm my response, rather than waiting for the correct answer to be repeated. This helped things to move along more quickly. My goal was to be able to produce some sentences using the new (or newly retrieved from 'ancient' memory) structures and vocabulary. After doing this, I had a gratifying sense of accomplishment and am looking forward to receiving feedback from an instructor.
Because of my goal of producing language, and the disparity between my receptive and productive abilities in Spanish, I have had the opportunity to try several techniques for making material more difficult. I'd also like to experience working with listening material that is difficult, and this week hope to do some work in other websites. I also need to do better at thinking through my goals and choosing material and methods that support them.